FASCISM is the highest stage of capitalism

 

Democracy is destroyed by Billionaires
Socialism is the solution

• Cut the war machine instead !

• No more resource wars !

• Tax the rich to pay the national debt !

• Stop funding genocide !

 

The interest on the 36 Trillion national debt comes to $2,000 per US. family annually to banks, most to foreign investors. Trump increased this debt in 2016 and now plans to raise the debt more. So will Democrats.

      Ike: “Beware the military-industrial complex !”
War profiteers influence Congress. Both corporate parties fund war and genocide. Vote independent !

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Arming Ukraine risks nuclear war

 

By Richard J. Ochs, March 27, 2025

 

Ironically, Russia’s action in Ukraine just might save the planet from nuclear war.  US missiles in Ukraine is the Cuba Missile Crisis in reverse.

 

As reported in the New York Times, “U.S. and European officials suggested that Mr. Biden could return nuclear weapons to Ukraine that were taken from it after the fall of the Soviet Union.” (NYT, Nov. 22 and 29, 2024.) “Zelensky has made his nation’s need for a nuclear weapon clear if the country isn’t granted NATO membership.” (NYT editorial, Dec. 22, 2024).

 

Such proximity risks an accidental nuclear response because a few minutes warning is not enough time to verify a report of incoming nuclear warheads.

 

US nukes on Russia’s border are more dangerous than the Cuban Missile Crisis because any US nuclear weapons in Ukraine would be closer to Moscow than Cuba is to Washington and closer to Moscow than any NATO submarines can get. US nuclear missiles close to Moscow would endanger the planet, but Russia preempted that.

 

Isn’t preventing WW-3 more important than letting Ukraine have sovereignty over its ethnic Russians in the east? US nuclear weapons in Ukraine would be more dangerous than the near-miss of nuclear war in 1962, when whistle blower Daniel Ellsberg said only luck prevented a nuclear catastrophe. Here are several reasons:

 

1. Missiles in Cuba were 1,000 miles from US command and control in Washington DC, whereas US nukes in Ukraine could be half of that distance from Moscow. Any missiles in Cuba would be 2,000 miles from fixed US ICBMs in Montana, whereas US nukes in Ukraine would be a lot closer to Russia’s retaliation ICBMs.
    

2. If a soviet missile had been launched toward either DC or Montana, US reconnaissance would know it immediately and either shoot it down, retaliate and/or prompt US leaders to go to a bunker outside of DC.
    

3. If the US would put nukes in Ukraine 15 minutes from Moscow, that would not be enough time for either side to verify a report of a nuclear missile. In a panic, either side may launch retaliation missiles or risk losing them. Either may not have time to shoot down hostile missiles or to get into bunkers. Proximity may cause mistakes and panic. As reported in a NYT editorial (Dec. 22, 2024), “Any decision responding to an incoming nuclear attack on the US would have to be made within as little as 15 minutes.”  The same would be true for Ukraine and Russia.
    

4. During his first term, Trump reportedly said, “If nuclear war happens, we won’t be second in line pressing the button.” * That is a threat of a US first strike. Fearing a hostile first strike, an adversary might be tempted to strike first instead. The NYT editorial (Dec 22, 2024) advocated: “a blanket no-first-use policy may ease tensions.”

 

1. Russia is correct to insist on a security guarantee, which Russia’s operation in Ukraine is enforcing. That is safer than risking possible nuclear missiles on Ukraine’s border close to Moscow.

 

1. “Russia's military is warning that Moscow will perceive any ballistic missile launched at its territory as a nuclear attack that warrants a nuclear retaliation.” ** The US is playing with fire.
    

2. Putin has a better reason to invade Ukraine than JFK had to illegally blockade Russian ships in international waters and threaten Cuba with a US invasion. Russia’s pre-emption in Ukraine reduces a risk of nuclear war but the illegal US action in 1962 almost caused nuclear war. Now US long-range missiles into Russia is again risking nuclear war. As whistleblower Prof. Daniel Ellsberg said, “We may not be so lucky next time.” The US should make a compromise deal like JFK and Khrushchev did in 1962 when the US Joint Chiefs planned war.

 

Applying the UN Charter

 

Article One prohibits aggression. Article Two prohibits threats of aggression. To threaten the entire planet by risking an accidental nuclear war is a lot worse than a border dispute. In this case, Article Two trumps Article One.

 

Putin’s threats of nuclear attack may be a bluff, but they came

 

The UN Charter was drafted and ratified before the Hiroshima atomic bombing. It never considered specifically to outlaw nuclear threats. It never considered that other nations might acquire nuclear weapons. It never considered that mutually assured destruction was now possible. It did not assign a hierarchy of violations. It does not say that

 

Hence, for purposes of humanity’s survival, the UN Charter is wanting. Nevertheless, Article Two of the Charter prohibits threats, so, short of abolition, The UN should also endorse all five “Back from the Brink” demands.

 

Citizens can make that determination and act on it. We can tell everyone that But we need to demand a compromise ASAP. Allowing NATO missiles near Russia is not compromising but is risking nuclear war.

 

The Budapest Memorandum

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The Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances comprises political agreements signed on 5 December 1994, to provide security assurances by its signatories relating to the accession of Ukraine to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). The memorandum was originally signed by Ukraine and three nuclear powers: Russia, the US and UK.

The Memorandum effectively removed all Soviet nuclear weapons from Ukraine and signers agreed to respect Ukraine’s independence and sovereignty in the existing borders.

The memorandum prohibited Russia, the US and UK from threatening or using military force or economic coercion against Ukraine. The deal was violated by Trump’s attempts to coerce Ukraine by his blocked payment of a congressionally mandated $400 million in 2019.

According to the Arms Control Assn., “After Russia declared the annexation of Crimea, the US, UK, and Ukraine called the action a blatant violation of the security assurances in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum. However, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry, “the security assurances were given to the legitimate government of Ukraine, not to the forces that came to power after the coup d’état.” ***
 

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines a Memorandum as “an informal record, a written reminder, an informal written record of an agreement that has not yet become official, an informal diplomatic communication, an informal record, a written reminder.”

 

Nuclear criminality

 

According to Prof. Francis A. Boyle, drafter of the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989 and author of many books on international law, “nuclear weapons have never been legitimate instruments of state policy, but rather have always constituted illegitimate instrumentalities of international lawless and criminal behavior. Today, article 2(4) of the UN Charter of June 26, 1945, prohibits both the use and the threat of force except in cases of legitimate self-defense as recognized by article 51 thereof.”

 

“Thereunder, the threat to use nuclear weapons (i.e., nuclear deterrence/terrorism) constitutes ongoing international criminal activity: Namely, planning, preparation, conspiracy and solicitation to commit crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, war crimes, as well as grave breaches of the Four Geneva Conventions of 1949, the Additional Protocol One of 1977, the Hague Regulations of 1907, the Geneva Gas Protocol of 1925, and the International Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of 1948.” ****

 

Summary

 

Therefore, the legal treaties described by Prof. Boyle take precedence over an informal memorandum, i.e., the crime of prior NATO nuclear threats on Russia overrides Russia’s taking Ukraine’s eastern land.

Legally and morally, the security of the entire planet overrides the security of Ukraine. Annexing eastern Ukraine is the lesser of evils, if evil at all. Knowing that, humanity cannot allow the risk of a possible nuclear Ukraine with missiles on Russia’s border. Russia is discouraging a proximity-caused accidental nuclear war and is doing humanity a favor. Question: when is a threat of aggression worse than an aggression? Answer: when 9 billion folks are threatened.

 

* Trump quote from The New Yorker, Dec. 27, 2024:
https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-lede/new-mexicos-nuclear-weapons-boom

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** https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2020-08-07/russia-warns-it-will-see-any-incoming-missile-as-nuclear

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*** https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2014-04/arms-checks-unaffected-ukraine-crisis

 

**** Excerpted from the book The Criminality of Nuclear Deterrence, 2002, Clarity Press, pg. 74, by Francis A. Boyle.

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***** The US and Ukraine started the war, not Russia:

https://covertactionmagazine.com/2022/04/09/the-united-states-and-ukraine-started-the-war-not-russia/

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